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Date November 2017 Marks available 15 Reference code 17N.3op4.HL.TZ0.31
Level Higher level only Paper Paper 3 (History of Europe) Time zone TZ0
Command term Discuss Question number 31 Adapted from N/A

Question

“Stalin’s Five-Year Plans and the policy of collectivization failed to improve the Soviet economy by 1941.” Discuss.

Markscheme

The question requires that candidates offer a considered and balanced review of the assertion that the Soviet economy was not improved by either the Five-Year Plans or by Collectivization. Candidates may choose to define the aims of both policies and then assess the success and failures of each in relation to the economic growth of the Soviet Union, they may elect to address the two policies separately or they may provide an integrated assessment of both. Some may argue that despite the many criticisms and weaknesses of the Five-Year Plans they were an overall success, giving the Soviet Union the industrial capacity to withstand invasion and to become a superpower. Collectivization was arguably a political success (dekulakization and the extension of party control in the regions) but an economic disaster, as agriculture did not recover until the 1950s.

Examiners report

[N/A]

Syllabus sections

HL options: first exams 2017 » HL option 4: History of Europe » 16: The Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia (1924–2000) » Soviet Union (1924–1941): Stalin and the struggle for power (1924–1929); defeat of Trotsky; Stalin’s policies of collectivization and the Five-Year Plans; government and propaganda under Stalin; the purges and the Great Terror
HL options: first exams 2017 » HL option 4: History of Europe » 16: The Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia (1924–2000)
HL options: first exams 2017 » HL option 4: History of Europe
HL options: first exams 2017

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